


Skills

by entanglednow



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-10
Updated: 2009-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck's honestly afraid that he'll stop paying attention and kill someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skills

Chuck's not sure whether he should trust his arms and legs any more.

Knowing how to kill someone without actually knowing how to kill someone is not good for a person's peace of mind. He has some vague idea of how muscle memory and subconscious repetition works; about how you can drive to work without thinking about it, or find yourself eating a sandwich without remembering making it. But this isn't the same, this is completely different.

This is not a sandwich.

Chuck's honestly afraid that he'll stop paying attention and kill someone.

To start with it had been really cool, really amazingly pant-wettingly cool. In that 'I've become a lethal weapon' sort of way. Because, to be fair, Chuck had gotten used to being an asset, something that was moved around and chased after and now he's- okay he's still an asset- but now he can do his own thing, with the punching and the kicking and probably no longer needs to hide behind pieces of furniture during the fight scenes.

But now there are no bad guys and there are _lines_ in the non-spy world, and Chuck is not used to having to work around those lines, usually he's running, or hiding, or screaming like a girl while people shoot at him, and Sarah and Casey do heroic things to save the day.

But now _everything_ has changed.

Now Casey has one arm wrapped round his chest and the other round his wrist, and he is, with slow but painful inevitability, pulling.

"Can I protest, again, that this isn't a good idea," Chuck says, or possibly whines?

Casey grunts.

"You wanted hand to hand training Bartowski."

"That was before I had ninja skills downloaded into my brain." Chuck points out, which he thinks is a very sensible thing to remember.

He's aware, in the back of his head somewhere where he can't quite get at, that he knows how to put Casey down now. Knows where to put pressure so Casey bends and breaks.

But Chuck's terrified of poking that part of his brain with a stick, in case he actually does it. He doesn't want to _actually_ do that.

This could be construed as poking. This could be construed, possibly, as jabbing the stick quite firmly into his head and swishing it around.

"Having a little performance anxiety there?" Casey grunts, like he's not bothered in the slightest about what Chuck could do to him.

Chuck pulls against Casey's hold and there's a shiver of _something_ on the edge, like if he bends just right, or twists, or digs his thumb in just there, he'd be _free._ It's all so clean and Chuck is horribly afraid of letting go, in case it's not clean at all but kind of horrible and gruesome and permanent.

"What if I do something horrible, what if I put my hand through you or something?"

Casey sighs, and it's a warm burst of long suffering annoyance across Chuck's left ear.

"I'd like to see you try." Casey pulls again and Chuck can't breathe, and all of a sudden the excitable ninja puppy inside him has slipped the leash.

Everything happens so fast, he suspects if he realised what was happening when it was happening he'd have fallen over.

But suddenly Casey is not holding him any more.

He is, in fact, on the floor.

Chuck blinks down at him, in a slightly bewildered fashion.

"Wha?"

Something hits him in the back, just hard enough that he staggers and goes down and the carpet tastes absolutely disgusting.

Casey tries to get a knee in the middle of his back, which the ninja powers seem to think would be a bad thing. Because Chuck's leg does something, and there's a grunt and something hits the wall, hard.

He gets up slightly less gracefully, and the clank of broken furniture tells Chuck that Casey's doing the same. He's seen Casey pull himself out of broken furniture before, but never because _Chuck_ put him there.

He's across the room before he even realises it, not entirely sure what he's going to do, but his arm apparently knows, which is nice for it, but not entirely comforting. Chuck understands that sometimes you just have to 'react' but he'd like to have some idea what he's going to do before he does it.

He starts trying to think halfway through the next movement and Casey takes his legs out from under him. Casey's attempt to then pin him to the ground is, in Chuck's opinion, unnecessarily enthusiastic and when Chuck rolls out of the way and gets up he ends up behind him.

It seems so obvious that he should loop an arm round Casey's neck and pull him back, set a knee just there so he can't sink to the ground and take him with him. Chuck's other arm seems to be trying to lock the first in place and he's not entirely sure he wants to strangle Casey but that's what he's apparently doing.

Until Casey gets a hold of his wrist and digs his thumb in-

The whole world is suddenly full of pain.

Lots of pain.

Chuck makes a noise, which is somewhat reminiscent of a cat dying, and lets go of everything he's holding. It's more of a flail to get away than a well-planned retreat, but it gets him his wrist back. He cradles it in his other hand and whimpers accusingly.

"It's not all about the skills," Casey says quietly and he's smiling now.

But his nose is bleeding, and Chuck is dimly aware that he did that.

He does, briefly, feel bad about it. But he's suddenly reminded of all the horrible things Casey's done to him when it was, to be quite honest, completely unnecessary. But then there's a strong possibility Casey is going easy on him. Because though one of his arms is completely numb and his wrist still hurts Chuck doesn't have any broken bones and he's not bleeding. He's fairly sure he'd be bleeding and miserable right now if Casey was _really_ trying.

Chuck wonders how many ways you can kill a man who comes straight at you.

He wonders how many of them he knows now.

And isn't _that_ a comforting thought.

His whole brain is suddenly a mess that isn't sure what it's doing, one way or the other.

"Wait, wait!" He holds his arms up, takes a breath and then takes another, and most definitely _doesn't_ think about accidentally killing anyone.

Casey lets him. One eyebrow raised in a way that looks for all the world like it's saying 'you're holding the entire class up Bartowski.'

"I don't know what my arms are going to do," Chuck protests. "I don't want to-" he makes a gesture that he's sure there's no way Casey is going to understand.

"Then don't," Casey says, like it's _easy._

"You've been scary your whole life," Chuck protests angrily. "I've been scary for exactly six days. You have experience not killing people on a whim, or because they surprised you, or because you're not paying attention," Chuck knows he's rambling but he can't quite help it. Because there's all this new and interesting adrenaline that he has no real idea what to do with and everything is completely different, and- OW!

He gets a hold of the arm Casey loops round his neck and throws them into the wall sideways. Casey's elbow _'clonks'_ on the brick and all tension goes out of it, leaving Chuck to twist in his grip.

It takes him a fraction of a section to realise that any attempt at a grapple or throw may have been the wrong card to play considering Casey outweighs and outreaches him by a factor of 'lots.' He could probably compensate for this, if he actually was a ninja, instead he ends up in the carpet again, tasting its delicious fibres.

He complains, loudly, in a language hitherto unspoken by man, and gets enough space to breathe.

Casey lets him up.

Chuck takes advantage of his uncharacteristic generosity, pushes back and over. It's like _magic_ and suddenly Chuck is the one pressing him down, sprawled over Casey's waist. He has two hands on one of his arms, very slowly twisting it against the joint.

It's much, much harder than it looks on TV.

He has leverage but Casey has strength, and persistence, and stamina, and experience.

Chuck isn't going to win.

That's a strangely comforting thought, because even though Casey isn't really trying, and Chuck isn't really trying- and even if he knew how he probably wouldn't- even though no one's actually _trying_ to kill anyone everything's okay.

Chuck thinks maybe Casey will let him push so far, and no further.

That doesn't mean he's going to give up just yet though.

Casey seems to agree, pushing against the twisting, forcing Chuck to work for it. Until he's breathing quick desperate breaths across the edge of Casey's jaw and getting absolutely nowhere.

He eventually gives up and sort of...collapses.

He takes a moment to breathe while there's plenty of air available. Casey grunts something unimpressed under Chuck's ear. They're kind of hugging. Which Chuck would be more disturbed about if he wasn't so tired. But then Casey's hand seems to realise it's spread open on his back and slides off.

Chuck's breath continues to wheeze out of him in a pathetic sort of way.

"You're out of shape," Casey complains, in a combination of amusement and disgust.

Chuck grunts reluctant agreement.

Casey is comfortable.

"Get off me," Casey huffs, though Chuck likes to think that there's a thread of manly camaraderie underneath.

"Do this mean I win?" he asks.

Casey lifts a hand and shoves and Chuck ends up sprawled out on the horrible carpet again.

"We'll call it a draw."


End file.
